[News] Late For Work 11/22: Ravens Can Deliver 'Knockout Blow' And Make Division A Two-Team Race

[eze17]

I like how PFF gave Zuttah a high rating, yet he cost us big time with his bone-headed penalties...

[eze17]

These undisciplined mistakes have been absolutely crushing us all year...Yeah, occasionally a referee makes a bad call, but most of the flags on us have been legitimate penalties. Why does it seem we are always in competition with the Raiders to see how many penalties we can rack up? And there should be no excuses or conspiracy theories, even when we get a bad call against us it usually works out that we get a favorable questionable call for us also. A lot of the calls are accurate, and its just so frustrating to watch professional players make unexcusable blunders, especially this late in the season.

[CQ1]

Thev "can"........however, what about what they also couldof, shouldof done.
Lets all just keep changing the percentage of chickenpoo with the chicken-salad.
Ok....how many can honestly feel a Ravens victory this Sunday?....percentage to win?

[CQ1]

I'm just thinking, what is the world coming to?

We have to root for the Luckless Colts on Thanksgiving.

It CAN be satisfying just rooting on BOTH defenses to beat the he-- out of each other.......Yes- Gotta root on the Colts, here

[Halshayeji]

1 hour ago, jravens1313 said:

Yeah when the zebra's refuse to call push off's it's easy to get open. That play where he just shoves Tavon Young in the helmet full extended arms and they just let it slip. SMH.

Please don't get me started. "Home field advantage" huh. Bunch of shmucks reffing the damn game. What about the tacky PI on the very next drive and then calling Zuttahs hit late when 3 guys were still tackling SSS. I'm not saying the NFL is a joke but what else can I say they are a joke and we knew this would happen! Oh and the ghost holding and the low hit on flaccos legs. But no one saw that.

dodnt I ask you not to get me started. Oh man what a heartbreak of a game. But seriously we could have and should have played a lot better than that.

[Halshayeji]

1 hour ago, rmcjacket23 said:

We didn't abandon the run.

On a scale of 1-10 how sarcastic were you when you wrote this?

[The Greek]

Regardless of what happens the rest of the way this season I would like to see the Ravens make a big push to sign NORV TURNER to be our OC. Maybe he could find a way to stop this offense from our two quarters of nothing and try scoring in every single quarter. It is amazing how quickly this team can score. First score was 3:04 and our second was 3:19. That means our offense was
resting for 53 minutes and change. That is insane.

as soon as norv resigned i was hoping we could lure him into a consultant job for the rest of the season than name him the oc unless morningweg gets things rolling. the bigger problem however is flacco. he is not playing like a 9 year veteran.

[The Greek]

I don't understand why we would need to remind a OC to get our weapons more involved. Its not like we are having so much success that we didn't need them! I don't get why we are not playing to our offenses strength and recognizing what we drafted for. We have a QB with a very strong arm and as a result we drafted WR's who can fly to take the top off of a defense. (This is our strength - this is what we drafted for and what we build our offense to look like). This will also open up a run game that has struggled for much of the year.

I don't understand why our head coach is not demanding our OC's to work within the team philosophy. I am not saying that Harbs should be a dictator but I am saying that all the coaches need to be on the same page and that is Harbs job to ensure that.

I just feel that he allows his assistant coaches way too much freedom to work outside of our the teams philosophy and as a result we have had a team (for the last 2 plus seasons) that is very unsure in their identity.

The Patriots identity is very clear- Short passing game
The Packers are an up tempo offense
The Titans philosophy is to run the ball
The Raiders have become a big play offense
The Broncos are a ball control team (using balance)
The Bills are a run first offense
The Steelers are that big play offense / that is set up off of the run
The Colts are an offense that loves to spread the ball out
The Seahawks are run oriented / ball control team

I can keep going

What is our identity? I really don't know. One week we try to be a big play offense, one week we try to be a spread the wealth, one week we try to play long ball, one week we revert back to the short passing game, one week we are no huddle-up tempo type offense, the next week we are a slow it down / grind it out type- we seem to have no clue who we are and it shows with a lack of consistency and at times a lack of understanding of how to call plays to build towards our game plan.

Hard to call plays to build towards our game plan when we are not sure what we want to do. We lack an offensive identity and as a result we lack an offense that we can count on.

I am not saying that Marty is not the right guy... I am saying that Marty needs to held to making his offense work with in the parameters of our philosophy. If he cannot do that then we need to find an new OC... if he can and has a clear direction... I think we will see this improve.

The last time we had a clear direction on offense was with Kubiack. It was very apparent that he had a game plan and that and that his philosophy was clear. I couldn't guess what our philosophy was since and it shows in our performance.

Harbs needs to hold his assistant coaches to fitting into our team philosophy and lets see what happens.

as you said harbs is the head coach and why he cannot get any of the off coordinators to come up with an identity for this offense is beyond me. kubs knew what he was doing hence he wins a superbowl the very next year and harbaugh has not been able to find someone to replicate it. looks like flacco will have his 50th oc next season.

[steelcityraven]

  2 hours ago, steelcityraven said:

I don't understand why we would need to remind a OC to get our weapons more involved. Its not like we are having so much success that we didn't need them! I don't get why we are not playing to our offenses strength and recognizing what we drafted for. We have a QB with a very strong arm and as a result we drafted WR's who can fly to take the top off of a defense. (This is our strength - this is what we drafted for and what we build our offense to look like). This will also open up a run game that has struggled for much of the year.

I don't understand why our head coach is not demanding our OC's to work within the team philosophy. I am not saying that Harbs should be a dictator but I am saying that all the coaches need to be on the same page and that is Harbs job to ensure that.

I just feel that he allows his assistant coaches way too much freedom to work outside of our the teams philosophy and as a result we have had a team (for the last 2 plus seasons) that is very unsure in their identity.

The Patriots identity is very clear- Short passing game
The Packers are an up tempo offense
The Titans philosophy is to run the ball
The Raiders have become a big play offense
The Broncos are a ball control team (using balance)
The Bills are a run first offense
The Steelers are that big play offense / that is set up off of the run
The Colts are an offense that loves to spread the ball out
The Seahawks are run oriented / ball control team

I can keep going

What is our identity? I really don't know. One week we try to be a big play offense, one week we try to be a spread the wealth, one week we try to play long ball, one week we revert back to the short passing game, one week we are no huddle-up tempo type offense, the next week we are a slow it down / grind it out type- we seem to have no clue who we are and it shows with a lack of consistency and at times a lack of understanding of how to call plays to build towards our game plan.

Hard to call plays to build towards our game plan when we are not sure what we want to do. We lack an offensive identity and as a result we lack an offense that we can count on.

I am not saying that Marty is not the right guy... I am saying that Marty needs to held to making his offense work with in the parameters of our philosophy. If he cannot do that then we need to find an new OC... if he can and has a clear direction... I think we will see this improve.

The last time we had a clear direction on offense was with Kubiack. It was very apparent that he had a game plan and that and that his philosophy was clear. I couldn't guess what our philosophy was since and it shows in our performance.

Harbs needs to hold his assistant coaches to fitting into our team philosophy and lets see what happens.

as you said harbs is the head coach and why he cannot get any of the off coordinators to come up with an identity for this offense is beyond me. kubs knew what he was doing hence he wins a superbowl the very next year and harbaugh has not been able to find someone to replicate it. looks like flacco will have his 50th oc next season.

The Greek... agreed.... IDK it is frustrating though!

[billiejean]

I don't understand why we would need to remind a OC to get our weapons more involved. Its not like we are having so much success that we didn't need them! I don't get why we are not playing to our offenses strength and recognizing what we drafted for. We have a QB with a very strong arm and as a result we drafted WR's who can fly to take the top off of a defense. (This is our strength - this is what we drafted for and what we build our offense to look like). This will also open up a run game that has struggled for much of the year.

I don't understand why our head coach is not demanding our OC's to work within the team philosophy. I am not saying that Harbs should be a dictator but I am saying that all the coaches need to be on the same page and that is Harbs job to ensure that.

I just feel that he allows his assistant coaches way too much freedom to work outside of our the teams philosophy and as a result we have had a team (for the last 2 plus seasons) that is very unsure in their identity.

The Patriots identity is very clear- Short passing game
The Packers are an up tempo offense
The Titans philosophy is to run the ball
The Raiders have become a big play offense
The Broncos are a ball control team (using balance)
The Bills are a run first offense
The Steelers are that big play offense / that is set up off of the run
The Colts are an offense that loves to spread the ball out
The Seahawks are run oriented / ball control team

I can keep going

What is our identity? I really don't know. One week we try to be a big play offense, one week we try to be a spread the wealth, one week we try to play long ball, one week we revert back to the short passing game, one week we are no huddle-up tempo type offense, the next week we are a slow it down / grind it out type- we seem to have no clue who we are and it shows with a lack of consistency and at times a lack of understanding of how to call plays to build towards our game plan.

Hard to call plays to build towards our game plan when we are not sure what we want to do. We lack an offensive identity and as a result we lack an offense that we can count on.

I am not saying that Marty is not the right guy... I am saying that Marty needs to held to making his offense work with in the parameters of our philosophy. If he cannot do that then we need to find an new OC... if he can and has a clear direction... I think we will see this improve.

The last time we had a clear direction on offense was with Kubiack. It was very apparent that he had a game plan and that and that his philosophy was clear. I couldn't guess what our philosophy was since and it shows in our performance.

Harbs needs to hold his assistant coaches to fitting into our team philosophy and lets see what happens.

The deep pass is just such a low percentage play. You can't do it a lot. Between 2010 and 2015 Flacco led the league with an average of 3 passes that were 25' feet or over. MW was thrown to on a go route twice. Once he slowed up as it sailed over his head and the other was near the endzone where he only go one foot in. There were also more than a few crossing routes thrown beyond 25'. One of which was caught by Aiken. It would be hard to create an identity with the deep ball as its centerpiece and be successful. It most definitely should be a complimentary part of our offense but it has to be set up with both the running game and short to intermediate passes. A good running game will make players bite on the play action and a good short passing game will cause DBs to bite on double moves.

[Bat-mite]

Let's get Kubiak back ... but as a head coach.

[rmcjacket23]

1 hour ago, Halshayeji said:

On a scale of 1-10 how sarcastic were you when you wrote this?

0. 

I suppose you could argue that we "abandoned the run" based on gameflow and us literally having to abandon the run, but I think the fans that think we abandoned the run are only looking at the boxscore and didn't actually watch the game.

Specifically, the first two drives in the 2nd half. Would love for literally anybody to tell me where we had the opportunity to run the ball more and why running the ball more would have been more effective.

[Minionhunter]

2 hours ago, omar586 said:

why is levine not on the field.

Not sure if I should laugh or be riled by this one. I do know Brooks would have been in there and likely would have laid someone out.

[Minionhunter]

1 hour ago, Halshayeji said:

Please don't get me started. "Home field advantage" huh. Bunch of shmucks reffing the damn game. What about the tacky PI on the very next drive and then calling Zuttahs hit late when 3 guys were still tackling SSS. I'm not saying the NFL is a joke but what else can I say they are a joke and we knew this would happen! Oh and the ghost holding and the low hit on flaccos legs. But no one saw that.

dodnt I ask you not to get me started. Oh man what a heartbreak of a game. But seriously we could have and should have played a lot better than that.

make up game by refs to throw to Dallas

http://www.espn.com/blog/dallas-cowboys/post/_/id/4755706/cowboys-havent-had-much-luck-with-john-parry-as-ref

[Bat-mite]

2 minutes ago, Minionhunter said:

make up game by refs to throw to Dallas

http://www.espn.com/blog/dallas-cowboys/post/_/id/4755706/cowboys-havent-had-much-luck-with-john-parry-as-ref

Nailed it!

[Minionhunter]

10 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

0. 

I suppose you could argue that we "abandoned the run" based on gameflow and us literally having to abandon the run, but I think the fans that think we abandoned the run are only looking at the boxscore and didn't actually watch the game.

Specifically, the first two drives in the 2nd half. Would love for literally anybody to tell me where we had the opportunity to run the ball more and why running the ball more would have been more effective.

By my analysis they could have run it one more time after West's run for zero on the second series in the second half, but it is a traditional passing down (2nd and long, quick pass to get a chunk of yards to make 3rd down easier). McJacket is right on this.

You could say that they don't appear overly committed to the run or they are not going against the standard play calling to push the running identity, or they are not imaginative in using the run, but they didn't abandon it until they very end when they had to.

[Minionhunter]

1 minute ago, Bat-mite said:

Nailed it!

The crew was trying to save their own reputation. Still no excuse, but it is "one more man" playing for the other side you have to fight. Why do people think Harbs said in his press conference he didn't see Zuttah's hit, and fake acting surprised by it that he didn't even know that he was called for a penalty, and that reporters should tell him that and write about what they thought. He knew, they all knew, but I bet the team issued a mandate this year (and good for them) about not criticizing the refs, because they got into a really bad way doing that last year, even though they were right.

[rmcjacket23]

9 minutes ago, Minionhunter said:

By my analysis they could have run it one more time after West's run for zero on the second series in the second half, but it is a traditional passing down (2nd and long, quick pass to get a chunk of yards to make 3rd down easier). McJacket is right on this.

You could say that they don't appear overly committed to the run or they are not going against the standard play calling to push the running identity, or they are not imaginative in using the run, but they didn't abandon it until they very end when they had to.

Precisely my point. That's what people are arguing about... ONE more running play.

We ran the ball twice in two drives. The first drive we ran it for no yards, forcing us into 2nd and 10. If you're advocating that we run the ball on 2nd and 10, feel free to post specifically why you think its a good idea.

The second drive we had a 9 yard gain on 1st down, which was negated by a 15 yard penalty on Zuttah after the play. That put us with a 2nd and 16. You don't run the ball on 2nd and 16.

By the time we got the ball again, we're down 14 with 11 minutes left. You don't run the ball barely at all in those spots either.

This isn't rocket science people.

[The Purp]

3 hours ago, steelcityraven said:

I don't understand why we would need to remind a OC to get our weapons more involved. Its not like we are having so much success that we didn't need them! I don't get why we are not playing to our offenses strength and recognizing what we drafted for. We have a QB with a very strong arm and as a result we drafted WR's who can fly to take the top off of a defense. (This is our strength - this is what we drafted for and what we build our offense to look like). This will also open up a run game that has struggled for much of the year.

I don't understand why our head coach is not demanding our OC's to work within the team philosophy. I am not saying that Harbs should be a dictator but I am saying that all the coaches need to be on the same page and that is Harbs job to ensure that.

I just feel that he allows his assistant coaches way too much freedom to work outside of our the teams philosophy and as a result we have had a team (for the last 2 plus seasons) that is very unsure in their identity.

The Patriots identity is very clear- Short passing game
The Packers are an up tempo offense
The Titans philosophy is to run the ball
The Raiders have become a big play offense
The Broncos are a ball control team (using balance)
The Bills are a run first offense
The Steelers are that big play offense / that is set up off of the run
The Colts are an offense that loves to spread the ball out
The Seahawks are run oriented / ball control team

I can keep going

What is our identity? I really don't know. One week we try to be a big play offense, one week we try to be a spread the wealth, one week we try to play long ball, one week we revert back to the short passing game, one week we are no huddle-up tempo type offense, the next week we are a slow it down / grind it out type- we seem to have no clue who we are and it shows with a lack of consistency and at times a lack of understanding of how to call plays to build towards our game plan.

Hard to call plays to build towards our game plan when we are not sure what we want to do. We lack an offensive identity and as a result we lack an offense that we can count on.

I am not saying that Marty is not the right guy... I am saying that Marty needs to held to making his offense work with in the parameters of our philosophy. If he cannot do that then we need to find an new OC... if he can and has a clear direction... I think we will see this improve.

The last time we had a clear direction on offense was with Kubiack. It was very apparent that he had a game plan and that and that his philosophy was clear. I couldn't guess what our philosophy was since and it shows in our performance.

Harbs needs to hold his assistant coaches to fitting into our team philosophy and lets see what happens.

I think our offense's identity is 3 and out.

(sorry, just venting my frustration)

[Minionhunter]

14 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

Precisely my point. That's what people are arguing about... ONE more running play.

We ran the ball twice in two drives. The first drive we ran it for no yards, forcing us into 2nd and 10. If you're advocating that we run the ball on 2nd and 10, feel free to post specifically why you think its a good idea.

The second drive we had a 9 yard gain on 1st down, which was negated by a 15 yard penalty on Zuttah after the play. That put us with a 2nd and 16. You don't run the ball on 2nd and 16.

By the time we got the ball again, we're down 14 with 11 minutes left. You don't run the ball barely at all in those spots either.

This isn't rocket science people.

Glad I'm not the only one who sees that. I've stopped going to a specific other site starting yesterday that blamed Sunday's loss on Flacco when he had a decent game (not perfect for sure, but good enough to win). I'm not giving them any more revenue with my clicks if they just want to spout nonsense.

The main problem was stupid penalties (opposed to calculated risk penalties) killing drives. Either wiping out first downs or huge chunks of yards which would have made it "simple to run the ball" on the next down but the penalty forces another pass instead. These things are a double whammy, they add another pass (a harder one to complete) to the stat line and effectively remove a running play, so the pass appears to be over-emphasized. Been the same all year (or drops by a WR on passes that hit them in the hands buddy pass style). It's like no one is watching the game and thinking about it. They just seem to look at stats, and you can't tell what happened in the game just from the stats.

[fluffy201]

Perriman Perriman smh. Can't wait for Nick Boyle, they kept that kid on the roster for a reason. He can block and catch (oh my)
.

[Minionhunter]

5 minutes ago, Minionhunter said:

Glad I'm not the only one who sees that. I've stopped going to a specific other site starting yesterday that blamed Sunday's loss on Flacco when he had a decent game (not perfect for sure, but good enough to win). I'm not giving them any more revenue with my clicks if they just want to spout nonsense.

The main problem was stupid penalties (opposed to calculated risk penalties) killing drives. Either wiping out first downs or huge chunks of yards which would have made it "simple to run the ball" on the next down but the penalty forces another pass instead. These things are a double whammy, they add another pass (a harder one to complete) to the stat line and effectively remove a running play, so the pass appears to be over-emphasized. Been the same all year (or drops by a WR on passes that hit them in the hands buddy pass style). It's like no one is watching the game and thinking about it. They just seem to look at stats, and you can't tell what happened in the game just from the stats.

These are interesting comments from a Browns player when juxtaposed to our own line.

“They [Brown's quarterbacks] can’t keep getting hit like that, and if I want to voice my opinion, I’m going to voice my opinion now, because it’s going on too much,” Pryor said, per Cleveland.com. “I don’t care if you’ve got to hold these dudes. Hold them and take the damn penalty and stop getting our quarterbacks hit. I hate that.” [emphasis added]

I wonder if our lines are similar in that both are struggling, but our line has a mandate, stated or unstated, to keep Joe from getting hit because of the injury.

[Minionhunter]

Heh. Ben gibbering like an idiot again trying to look like a tough guy.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/11/22/ben-roethlisberger-has-no-doubt-andrew-luck-will-play/

Just announced that Luck is definitely out for the game.

 

[Minionhunter]

9 minutes ago, Minionhunter said:

Heh. Ben gibbering like an idiot again trying to look like a tough guy.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/11/22/ben-roethlisberger-has-no-doubt-andrew-luck-will-play/

Just announced that Luck is definitely out for the game.

 

PFT quote

"Just when you think Tomlin’s rabbit’s foot must be worn down to the skin…"

[robbie29]

When Shareece Wright is your 4th highest graded defender, you know things are bad.

[Halshayeji]

1 hour ago, Minionhunter said:

make up game by refs to throw to Dallas

http://www.espn.com/blog/dallas-cowboys/post/_/id/4755706/cowboys-havent-had-much-luck-with-john-parry-as-ref

Great post!

[Halshayeji]

2 hours ago, rmcjacket23 said:

0. 

I suppose you could argue that we "abandoned the run" based on gameflow and us literally having to abandon the run, but I think the fans that think we abandoned the run are only looking at the boxscore and didn't actually watch the game.

Specifically, the first two drives in the 2nd half. Would love for literally anybody to tell me where we had the opportunity to run the ball more and why running the ball more would have been more effective.

I hope you don't get this the wrong way because I really love your passion and preservative on things. But this time It seems like your just debating to debate. Or you really don't see colors when it comes to Flacco. We abandoned the run after our first TD. We continued to throw when the D knew we were gonna throw causing us to ultimately fall behind and have to pass pass pass. I'd pay money to watch the game again with you lol

[rmcjacket23]

28 minutes ago, Halshayeji said:

I hope you don't get this the wrong way because I really love your passion and preservative on things. But this time It seems like your just debating to debate. Or you really don't see colors when it comes to Flacco. We abandoned the run after our first TD. We continued to throw when the D knew we were gonna throw causing us to ultimately fall behind and have to pass pass pass. I'd pay money to watch the game again with you lol

Umm, no, actually that didn't happen.

We had three drives in the 1st half AFTER we scored a TD. We ran 18 plays. 7 of them were running plays.

That's not even remotely abandoning the run. That's a 60/40 pass/run ratio. By NFL standards, that's about as balanced as it gets.

And for the record, on those 7 run plays, we gained a TOTAL of 15 yards. That's about 2 YPC. That's horrific.

That's kind of the whole point. When you average 2 YPC for 3 drives, you damn well better start throwing the ball. You're just wasting time and not accomplishing anything by running it.

The sad thing is... on a couple of these drives, we had moderate success on 1st down. A couple 4 or 5 yard gains. Sure, you could argue that on 2nd and 5 we should be running the ball more, and maybe that's the case. But its a difficult spot for any team, because if you don't convert a 1st down on that play, you're almost certainly going to throw on 3rd down. And I can show countless examples this season of how unbelievably dreadful we have been running the ball on 2nd and 5 yards or less. A ton of negative plays and no gains.

I mean heck go look at some of the drives you're referencing. We ran the ball on 2nd and 15, which is a spot a lot of teams would never, ever run the ball on, and we gained 0 yards. 2nd and 15 and we can't even gain a yard running the ball? Yeah, that smells confidence in the running game. 

The next drive... 1st and 10. -3 yards on a rushing attempt. Anytime a drive has a 2nd and 10+ yards, kiss running the ball goodbye until you get a 1st down. Its just a waste.

This is the problem I have with fans. They go to the box score and say "o look we averaging 6 YPC and only ran it 16 times... we must have abandoned the run". And then, when you actually go watch the tape, every single one of them has a hard time coming up with more than 1-2 more instances where we actually should have ran the ball.

Sometimes I think fans just want 25-30 carries just for the sake of having 25-30 carries. Doesn't matter if those carries are effective, give us a chance to win, etc. They just want to be able to say at the end of the game "yeah, we were balanced".

 

[The Greek]

unfortunately this team lacks the killer instinct. they do not smell blood

[Ravenous_Ravens]

I get Dallas has a decent run defense but when you can run with success as we all saw in the first half, why abandon it completely? Need a balanced approach to keep the opposing defenses honest. Passing game would have been wide open if they stuck with the run, or get continue to get gashed up the middle.